Lately I’ve been haunting ebay, trying to track down new versions of a pair of boots I used to own. The old pair fell to bits, but I still regretted binning them, and since women’s fashion moves on constantly, the original manufacturer doesn’t sell them anymore and I need to wait for new pairs to show up, either from retail discount warehouses, or people having a wardrobe clearout.
Theseare the boots - not my size sadly, but I’ve already got new pairs in brown and black, thankfully.
I also stumbled across a new-to-me version of a top I used to own, in a charity shop. Again, I’d worn the original top to death, so was delighted to get a ‘new’ version, but sadly, it’s already slightly ripped [1] so I’m haunting ebay for a third copy of it too.
And now it’s occured to me that those two dresses I binned in the massive clear-out I had to have when my husband threw me out, yeah, I want them back too, so once again, I’m scouring ebay searching by size, colour and manufacturer, with no joy so far.
Am I the only one? Is this an early sign of hoarding behaviour? Or am I just too set in my ways, and should really update my look
[1] Stupid charity shop price tag damaged the neckline, probably between me buying it and getting it home.
I had the best umbrella ever and stupidly lost it on the train, only to find it nearly impossible to find the same type again. Just found them again this week.
I bought 3. I’ll use one and put the other two in my cupboard…
Over the last few years I have done a load of this. After my divorce I was bitter and loads of time on my hands.
Started with my Band of brothers DVD box set - X bought them for my birthday - smashed them to bits and spent £50 getting the exact same set - What it was a great show and at least I bought them this time.
But I have trolled ebay and car boot sales and have dug up
books I used to read as a teenager (Piers Anthony’s Xanth books)
Comics and Annuals I read as a kid (2000AD, Judge Dredd & and a Starlord one)
Games I used to play - even a play by mail (not email mind) game that is still going to this day.
T-shirts I used to own - oh ebay you are my new love… you make me feel young again…
This thread reminds me, I need to see if I can find a T-shirt shop in town that has a duplicate of a favorite of mine that’s in dire need of repairs or replacement.
When I was a teenager, I had an already-by-then out-of-print Avalon Hill tabletop solitaire game where you command a Sherman tank in WWII. It got lost at some point between the various times I moved around in those years. I loved the hell out of that game.
Last year, I tracked down a copy of it on eBay and paid $150 for it.
I’m still seething over losing an ebay auction in the last ten seconds (after no bidding activity for hours and having a top bid waaaay over the current bid) of a plastic bathtub toy I loved as a child that my daughter accidentally broke when she was two, twenty-eight years ago! I have searched for years for this toy, in flea markets and antique-y shops and online, and to finally find it, with a box (which I didn’t care about) and then not get it was beyond annoying. At least I made the other bidder pay six times what I was winning it for!.
I have also gotten extra copies of beloved childhood books so that my grandchildren can each have their own copy, and I’m currently searching for other toys from mine and my children’s childhoods. We don’t throw too much away in terms for toys, but I want duplicates of things the kids had to share. Clothes, however, don’t hold as much nostalgia, especially since I generally sewed my own clothes throughout high-school and couldn’t replicate them if I searched forever!
And it’s not something I USED to own, but currently own that was looking like it was being discontinued, that I went on a buying binge on to obtain enough to last through the estimated rest of my life…my favorite hairbrush. I now own twelve. And the stickers they use to indicate a soon-to-be discontinued item at the store have been removed, and the item is still being restocked…I often wonder if it is because I bought up all the stock at six different stores in the space of a week?
Video games, books, comics, music, movies. And not in the sense of buying them in a new format or a download, but in the sense of buying the same item more than once. Sometimes lost, sometimes stolen, sometimes damaged or destroyed.
I do it with clothes, too. Especially after the ex-fiancee, to whom I gave everything back which she had given me. Afterward, I found that I missed several of the pieces of clothing she’d gotten me – a well-fitted suit, a jacket, some shoes – that I went out and repurchased them.
I bought a Cyclo Teacher off eBay because I had such fond memories of it from my childhood. A few year’s later, my Mom found my original one somewhere, so now I have two of 'em sitting here in my office.
I buy a pair of Dockers oxford shoes (similar to this, except black) every two years or so, when the sole of the previous pair wears out. Maybe I should start stocking up…
